Discover Contemplation With the Parables & Your Loved OnesSample

Whether we are aware of it or not, an exquisite love story is happening around us on this Earth. We are fed because of animals and natural forces that move pollen from one place to another so that plants can reproduce, flourish, and thrive. Water and wind are forces of pollination. But so are bees, hummingbirds, butterflies, bats, beetles, and moths, creatures that perform the often risky work of pollination that moves new life forward. The wondrous process of pollination nurtures humans, birds, flowers, trees, and livestock.

Contemplate an apple, something that could be in your kitchen or backpack right now: that apple is here and ready to feed you because a bee once visited the flower of an apple tree. And our planet’s bees are in trouble; every year, billions of bees are lost to a complex combination of forces like parasites, poor nutrition, pesticides, and viruses. Bees’ habitats are also disappearing, but we can work creatively together to create and tend homes for them. For example, at the university where I work in midtown Nashville, our president often ends his workday by putting on long gloves, donning a mesh veil, and going up to the rooftop of one of our academic buildings where he tends hives of bees that will pollinate flowers as far as a mile away. There’s no shortage of scriptural evidence imploring humans to tend to creation and cultivate life.

Wonder together: How can we respond to losing vital members of creation? Can you think of some physical ways you and your loved ones might care for creation by encouraging pollination? Can you help children at the table cherish bees by helping them understand the different roles of the queen bee, the worker bees, and the drones? In my book Seasons of Wonder, I offer simple guidelines on how to create a pollinator garden.

Gather around a screen, and behold the mystery of pollination by watching the documentary Wings of Life. The astonishing photography in this documentary allows you to look carefully at a process that very few humans have ever had a chance to ponder—the reciprocal love story between animals and plants. After you finish watching the film, compose a prayer of thanksgiving and protection for our bees and flowers with those in your gathering.

Contemplate the parable of the mustard seed and how little actions can be transformative (Matthew 13:31-32).